Monday, August 31, 2015

I just finished an excellent six part mini-series by the wonderful David Simon (The Wire) called "Show Me a Hero" on HBO. Really well done, with terrific acting, especially from Oscar Isaac and Catherine Keener. It explored a real life event in Yonkers, NY, from the late eighties where the government wanted to establish low cost housing in middle class neighborhoods, which created violently intense opposition. It has me thinking about the issues of race in our country.As best I can tell, the worst thing you can do to poor black and brown people is put them into large Projects. This is just a way of the government jamming them all together in one place and doing their best to forget about them, which is possible as long as their problems don't spill out and intrude into the consciousness of the middle and upper classes. This last year, there has been a lot of spilling out going on, however. As I have written before, the problem with this is The Drug War. Black and brown people are essentially sectioned off from the middle classes in Drug War Zones. The people warehoused in these types of environments are part of The Drug War or at least in the middle of the battle zones. They are high crime areas, of course, but I believe a very large percentage of the crimes are Drug War related - selling, buying, organizing the drug gangs, killing and terrorizing other gangs, killing the police, killing and terrorizing civilians unlucky enough to be witnesses or in the wrong places at the wrong times. Young men of color are born into a world that the middle and upper classes know very little of, and I am grateful to David Simon for his windows into these dysfunctional worlds. It appears that Yonkers did their integration the right way, which was to build scattered low cost housing that had only about 40 low income people of color in each area. The purpose was to allow a small number of them to be more easily absorbed into the middle class neighborhood because the white and black/brown neighbors would interact over time and see each other as human, and thus be given a real opportunities to create more meaningful hope filled lives. The racism behind the outcries and avid opposition to the building and occupying of these units was pretty hard to watch. And no claim was made by the show that every person of color integrated successfully into their new neighborhood. But the point was pretty strongly made that it was a successful effort and the resulting communities have adjusted to each other pretty well.I believe that this kind of integration, done right, can be successful, and good for Yonkers and good for David Simon to provide reasons for optimism.Beyond that, I think the bigger question about race in America has a chance to be successfully dealt with by ending The Drug War. Apparently Portugal decriminalized most drugs with some very positive results. They stopped treating drugs as a crime and started treating drugs as a disease to be treated. The result? No Drug War.An obvious example is in America's own history. In the early 20th century prohibition made alcohol illiegal. The result? The Alcohol Wars. Gangs terrorized each other, civilians were killed who were witnesses or in the cross fire, etc. Al Capone built his empire out of blood and terror. Just like the current gangs and cartels do today in the Drug War Zones. So, what happened? Alcohol was decriminalized and the idea of the head of one alcohol maker or distributor killing and terrorizing another is ridiculous. Of course they don't. There is no need. There is not a massive police occupation of large areas of population that are involved in the making and distribution of alcohol. Prohibition is over. So is the killing.I think the best thing that can happen to the inner cities of black and brown people is to end the prohibition of drugs. The wars would be over. The inner cities would no longer be war zones. The police would no longer be an occupying force in the midst of an endless and hopeless war against the making and distributing of illegal drugs.Would there be more addicts? Maybe, but they would be treated as sick and in need of assistance rather than as criminals and thrown into the criminal justice system which does little else other than train them to become warriors in The Drug Wars. And the end result would be fewer addicts, not more, as Portugal seems to be proving.Some countries have tried it with good success. Why not here?And, by the way, wouldn't black and brown people living in the inner cities start to be seen as human rather than as threats once they were no longer soldiers in the misbegotten Drug War? Wouldn't their neighborhoods have a chance to become much safer and heal? What could more dramatically elevate the environment of the impoverished inner cities than to have them cease to be war zones? Wouldn't their assimilation into the middle classes become a much more natural evolution?I wonder.

Friday, August 14, 2015

I have never taken Trump seriously. I have always thought he is just this year's version of Sarah Palin, all attitude and no substance. So I am reluctant to write again about this empty suit, but I do so again simply for the pleasure of being able to quote long time conservative thinker George Will about the grandiose one:

"In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay."

I think Trump supporters are versions of the semi-drunk delusional bar fly described by Will, and those who delight in the silliness of right wing talk radio and FOX News, whose main message seem to be that all we need to do is get a president and congress who are really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really. really, really, really, really ... and I mean really ... TOUGH.

And what about the polls? At this point in the campaigns they are little more than name recognition. Its very predictable that the biggest winners of today's polls are simply the most famous people - Clinton, Bush, and Trump. Saying you like someone today doesn't mean you are going to vote for them when the time comes.

Monday, August 10, 2015

No surprise, of course, but Donald Trump has already outstayed his 15 minute of presidential candidate fame welcome. He managed to make a disgusting sexist attack on Megyn Kelly, probably the top conservative woman media person in the country. I guess Mr Trump is just not very bright.No loss. I don't expect him to go the third party route, he could only do that if there was some kind of ground swell for him, and his swell has peaked and will fade into dust soon enough, it seems to me. A third party run by Trump might end up getting the Duck Dynasty vote along with his own, but by that time even the DD fans would likely move on.By the way, I suppose Mr Trump's greatest attraction was his attack on Political Correctness. Many conservatives are very angry at Political Correctness. I guess they feel inhibited by such constraints. But why?How about sexism? It's politically incorrect to be sexist, but it's politically correct to be against sexism and to pursue a greater understanding of what that means as time passes and all of us born into a sexist world continue to become more and more conscious of unconscious sexism and chauvinism. So, is this a tough choice? Sexist or not sexist? Obviously Mr Trump has made his choice. Seems to be Politically Correct is the better choice. Is that controversial?How about racism? It's Politically Incorrect to be a racist, but it's Politically Correct to be against racism, and to pursue greater understanding of what that means as time passes and all of us born into a racist world continue to become more and more conscious of unconscious racism. Racist or not racist? Seems Politically Correct is the better choice. Is this controversial?And homophobia? Politically Incorrect to be homophobic, Politically Correct to see gays as just folks like you and me but who fall in love with their own sex rather than the opposite. So what? This question is being answered generationally, and my favorite statement about it is conservative George Will saying that to the young someone being gay is about as interesting as someone being left handed.So, Trump will fade into oblivion, probably as noisily as he can. But who will his enthusiasts switch their allegiance to? I doubt that very many of them will change their anti-Political Correctness spots. But, who knows, maybe seeing their beliefs being portrayed so openly and vilely by Trump can be an awakening for some of them, and maybe they can just walk away from their old politics. It's not easy to change your mind, or learn new things, but it is possible. I've done it a couple of times.

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About Me

I am a boomer who has been both a left winger and a right winger and am seeking to add some soothing energy to the inflamed polarizations of today's rhetoric. However, in the age of extremist Republicanism I see the best way to soothe the waters is to oppose the inflammations from the Right, and the Left as needed.